Wardak, an ethnic
Pashtun and son of Abdul Ghani, was born in the
Maidan Wardak Province of Afghanistan in 1945. He attended
Habibia High School in
Kabul, and after graduating there he joined the
Cadet University. He completed further studies in the
United States and at the
Ali Naser Academy in
Cairo,
Egypt. He has served as a lecturer in the Cadet University and was Assistant of Protocol of the Ministry of Defense. He then served with the
Mujahideen, as a military assistant officer in the
Mahaz-e-Milli, as military assistant of the Trilateral Unity, and as a member of
Itehad-e-Mujahidin and commander of the Jihadi fronts of Mahaz-e-Milli. He joined one of the seven parties as a member of the military committee composed of "military advisers and senior staff officers from each Party."
Pir Sayyed Ahmad Gailani led the
National Islamic Front of Afghanistan party of which then Colonel Wardak was a member. Gailani and Mujaddadi were the two moderate leaders of the group of seven. Wardak, as a notable Mujahideen commander, witnessed the "occupation and destruction of the key Resistance complexes at Zhawar in Paktia Province in Eastern Afghanistan by Soviet and DRA forces in the spring of 1986" and described the attacks as "the heaviest since the invasion." He testified several times before the
U.S Congress during the war against the Soviets. In 1989, he was wounded by a
Scud missile and received treatment in the United States. After the fall of the
Najibullah regime in 1992, Wardak was a member of the Security Committee of Kabul City, Chief of the Army Staff, Director of the Military Officers' Society, Director of the Education Commission, member of the National Army Commission, Deputy Defence Minister, Director of Disarmament Programme and Director of Reform of the National Army. ==Security sector reform and state building==